I leaned forward, trying to get a better view, and just as I heard the click of the trigger I caught a glimpse of a white human foot.

“Stop!” I cried.  “It’s a man!”

It was too late to stop the discharge, but a quick turn of his wrist sent the bullet whistling harmlessly through the trees.  The creature scrambled hurriedly away through the dead leaves, and our horses, trembling and snorting, tried again to run.

“It is a bear!” he cried as we saw its shaggy bulk awkwardly climbing the slope between two clumps of bushes.  “No, by Jove, it’s got hands and feet!  Now, what in the—­”

Then the thing half turned toward us, and we saw that it had a man’s head and face, covered with hair and beard.

“Good God!  It’s Henry Moulton!” cried the Artist.  “Moulton!  Moulton!  Come back here!  What’s the matter with you!”

At the sound of his name the man sprang to his feet, facing us.  The bearskin which wrapped his body slipped down and left him entirely nude.  In an instant he dropped upon all fours again, drew the skin over him and shambled away.

We turned our staring eyes upon each other, and there was no need to speak the appalling thought that was in both our minds.  With one accord we plied our whips and drove our unwilling and terrified horses in the direction he had taken.  We came near enough to see that he was digging among the dry leaves for acorns, and that his beard and mouth were defiled with earth, and full of fragments of leaves and acorn shells.  But as soon as he saw us he darted off into the thick underbrush, whither we could not follow him.

We hurried on to his shack, where the rest of the party had already arrived, and the men all started back at once with ropes and lariats for Moulton’s capture and garments for his covering.

The cabin was a rough affair, made of logs and chinked with fir boughs, and having an earthen floor.  A bunk made of rough timbers and mattressed with twigs of fur was covered with some blankets and clothing, tossed into heaps.  Under the blankets at the head of the bunk I found a little pile of books—­a Shakespeare, a volume of Emerson’s essays, Thoreau’s “Walden,” and a well-worn “Iliad,” in the Greek text.

“How queer,” said one of the women, as she looked curiously at the volumes, “that an ignorant creature such as this crazy mountaineer must be should have such books as these in his cabin!  They must have been left here by some tourist, and he has put them away and kept them.  It shows how much respect even the ignorant have for learning.”

Some torn scraps of paper were scattered over the floor, and I picked them all up and tried to piece them together.

When the men returned with the lunatic he was quiet and obedient, except when they tried to substitute proper clothing for his bearskin.  Against this he fought with all his strength, striking, scratching, and kicking with hands and feet, snapping and biting viciously, and all the time either roaring with fury, or, when they succeeded in pulling the hide a little away from him, groaning, shrieking, and writhing as if he were being flayed.